Features
Backstage - Obituaries - Letters- Newest
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Chit Chat - Economical with the truth
Tabard is pleased to note that theatre producers now have a ready made excuse should their wonderful new product fail to attract sufficient audiences to make money. The state of the Economy.
Chit Chat - What a farce
Speaking of excuses, which one is Liverpool going to magic up for the latest shambles engulfing its year as Capital of Culture?
TV review
Apparently the great American actor John Barrymore was asked on his deathbed if dying was hard. “Dying is easy,” Barrymore replied, “comedy is hard.”
Radio review - Drama
Balzac’s novels are thick with detail - who wore what and how they wallpapered their homes, sandwiched between more weighty analysis of human nature. So how was all this, plus some pretty sharp turns of fortune, going to be crammed into a two-part dramatisation of The Black Sheep? Perhaps with walk-on parts for Gok Wan and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, with their appraisals of what was a la mode in Paris and the provinces in 1842, followed by some philosophical musings on moral fibre from Alain de Botton?
Chit Chat - Out of the woods
Meanwhile - and on a more serious note - Tabard is delighted to see Dan Crawford and Judy Campbell being remembered with a brand new production at the Jermyn Street Theatre.
TV review
Spooks: Code 9 is set in the year 2012, where the UK is still reeling from the devastation of the nuclear terrorist atrocity that wiped out everybody who isn’t young, good-looking, thin and sexy.
Radio review - light programme
Is it a British thing to feel uncomfortable in the presence of one of the world’s greatest players of the self-blowing trumpet?
Chit Chat - Callow’s musical appreciation isn’t shallow
The arts council might also like to take a pointer from Live Music Now in how not to pitch your new figurehead.
Chit Chat - Frayling’s wise words on failing friendships
Adverts have gone out for the new chair of Arts Council England, with Christopher Frayling due to hang up his hat early in the New Year.
Radio review - drama
Throughout July, radio drama was so full of collective dark nights of the soul, that I thought we were going to limp into high summer, heads spinning with dire economic forecasts and wall-to-wall coverage of obscure sports, wanting only to slash our wrists.
TV review
Going out around 5pm means that Roman Mysteries can’t indulge in the kind of excesses usually associated with the era, but this CBBC drama still manages to tackle adult historical themes with intelligence and honesty.
Radio review
To hear Richard Ingrams on Desert Island Discs you’d think Private Eye edited itself all those years. He was merely a conduit for other people’s talents, he told Kirsty Young, invoking Malcolm Muggeridge’s definition of the ideal editor as “a blind man tapping his way along with a white stick.”
TV review
The BBC rather cheekily borrowed Nino Rota’s score from The Godfather to advertise House of Saddam, a four part serial about the former Iraqi dictator which shares several dramatic similarities with the Oscar-winning Mafia classic.
Chit Chat - at Edinburgh
Tabard hasn’t made the trip up to Edinburgh for the start of the festival this week, but has instead dispatched a few little helpers to the barren lands north of the border. These are some of the things they’ve reported back.
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Backstage
- Aussie influence
- UK-based automation specialist Kinesys has appointed two Australian…
- Name change
- AC Lighting is to change its name to AC Entertainment Technologies from…
- Lighting up the fringe
- HSL has been supplying lighting equipment for all the C venues theatres at…
- Get up, stand up
- XL Video recently sponsored Mick Perrin’s Just For Laughs Live which produced…
- Green Knight
- Using Robe and Anolis LED products, lighting designer Lawrence T Doyle claims…
Obituaries
- Simon Gray
- The author of 40 plays, television plays and screenplays, and five novels,…
- Jon Miller
- Jon Miller was one of the original presenters of How, ITV’s hugely popular…
- Lita Roza
- Big band singer Lita Roza was one of the most successful recording artists of…
- Terence Rigby
- Actor Terence Rigby was familiar to TV viewers for his roles in series such…
- Bill Cotton
- Former BBC head of light entertainment and controller of BBC1, Sir Bill…
Letters
- Valuable skill
- Danny Gilfeather’s assertion there is a “total lack of trade union…
- Sweet Melody
- I read with interest your online obituary of Tony Melody who died on June 30.
- Name that song
- I am trying to find the words of two old songs and am hoping someone out…
- Best wishes
- I would like to express my thanks to the great number of colleagues and…
- Valid point
- It was indeed a pleasure at last to read such an outstanding column from…
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